The King's Gallery
Every monarch inherits the mother of all art collections—one million items including 7,000 paintings, 30,000 watercolors, and half a million prints, to say nothing of sculpture, furniture, and jewelry—but it was the late Queen Elizabeth who decided to show many of them to the public. This was her Queen’s Gallery, which was renamed in 2024. Only a tiny fraction is here; the booty is also in palaces such as Kensington and Hampton Court, and on loan. The few works (budget 1 hr.) are undoubt-edly exceptional (one of the world’s few Vermeers, a Rubens self-portrait given to Charles I, glittering ephemera by Fabergé), but depending on what temporary exhibition supplements
Every monarch inherits the mother of all art collections—one million items including 7,000 paintings, 30,000 watercolors, and half a million prints, to say nothing of sculpture, furniture, and jewelry—but it was the late Queen Elizabeth who decided to show many of them to the public. This was her Queen’s Gallery, which was renamed in 2024. Only a tiny fraction is here; the booty is also in palaces such as Kensington and Hampton Court, and on loan. The few works (budget 1 hr.) are undoubt-edly exceptional (one of the world’s few Vermeers, a Rubens self-portrait given to Charles I, glittering ephemera by Fabergé), but depending on what temporary exhibition supplements








